The main character in my book is fifteen years old. While writing I am taken back to when I was fifteen and the feelings I experienced then. What decisions I made, what I regret doing/not doing and what moments I would want to change. This is important to remember since I want my character to feel realistic, so I am creating these moments for her that are similar to what I can remember about myself.
When I was fifteen and in eight grade I had a blog, just like many others since this was during the great blog-era. In this blog I wrote about my life. I remember this one post I wrote about my shoes. A friend of mine had, earlier that day, told me that she had overheard some of our classmates saying out loud what ugly shoes I had. I do not think they knew they were mine but that was how my friend framed it. I was hurt; not because I really liked those shoes but because I was less popular than the girl who had said it. I came home and wrote about it on my blog, saying how much I liked my shoes and that I thought she was mean for saying so (expressing her opinions to her friend, but I did not see it like that at the time).
My big mistake was mentioning her by name. I even believe I included her last name since she and another friend of mine had the same name and I just wanted to make sure anybody who read it did not mistake her for my friend.
Of course the confronted me the next day in school. She walked over with two girlfriends at her side, scowling at me and my friends, towering over us as a large built teenager and basically scared the crap out of me. I knew exactly what this was about and in that moment I really regretted my fragile feelings. She said:
"Hey, Ellinor!"
I turned around looking confused since she had never talked to me before. I remember putting my hands on my hips trying to look untouched and confident while whimpering inside.
"Yes?"
"Don't you have anything to say to me?" she asked demanding and crossed her arms.
This is the moment I regret. I truly wish I had been the bigger person, saying I assume you read my blog. I am sorry for mentioning you by name. Hearing you opinion about the shoes I wear made me feel small since you are so popular and I only have two friends or something like that. This is not what I said. The only thing I could manage to say, since I was afraid my voice would crack if I said to much, was:
"No."
I regretted it instantly. She got really mad and said something (I can not recall what) but at that very moment a snowball thrown by the teenage boys in my class hit the roof I was standing under and a small amount of snow fell down under my loosely fitted shirt. I took the opportunity to make another scene to get away from the confronting girl and jumped around complaining about the melting snow that ran down my spine. I had my friends stick their hands in there to remove it and even though they said that there was nothing there, all of it had already melted, I insisted that they kept going. Whilst this was happening the boys looked confused over my reaction since they had probably seen the small amount that had actually fallen from the roof, but they stood between two groups of girls clearly not on good terms and so they backed away. The girls kept talking, I have no idea if it was directed to me or among themselves.
It ended with her saying now we all know that Ellinor is a liar. I felt like that was a bit harsh and untrue, but did not speak up. Fortunately our teacher arrived and she had to go attend to another class. Relieved she did not have the same class at that moment I shamefully talked shit about her with my friends. Probably saying things like short temper and can not take bad publicity. We did not like her before or after that confrontation.
I have no memory of what happened later that day. She did not confront me again, probably happy with telling lies about me to everyone who wanted to hear it. I for one removed the post but never fully deleted it. I like to keep things that remind me of what I should never repeat.
Lesson you should learn from this:
Do not post names online if you do not have the consent of the person you are mentioning.
